Containers and method of making same



1964 R. H. REUTHER ETAL 3,

CONTAINERS AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME Filed Jan. 29, 1962 2 Sheets-Sheet1 /m/e/7/0/5 A/ber/ L. MCCO/7/76V/ Richard H Rea/ her Edward K05? kas Byfhe/r aff omeys De 8, 1964 R. H. REUTHER ETAL CONTAINERS AND METHOD OFMAKING SAME 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Jan. 29, 1962 f 5 mmwm M mmum WEEVCHK m MM mw na w nc WflM .C 0 A W a Patented Dec. 8, 1964 ice 3,160,273QQNTAINER AND METHQD OF MAKING SAME Richard H. Reuther, Media, Edward M.Kasinkas, Lansdowne, and Albert L. McConnell, Chester, Pa., assignors toScott Paper (Iompany, hhiladelphia, Pa, a corporation of PennsylvaniaFiled Jan. 29, 1962, Ser. No. 161 ,1232 4 Claims. (Cl. 206-56) Thisinvention relates to containers such as household sandwich and foodstorage bags, to a household appliance which is capable of convenientlyproviding containers suitable for food storage and the like, and to amethod for making such containers.

One of the problems which confront the housewife is the packaging orwrapping of food. This may arise, for example, in connection with thestorage of unused or left-over food in the refrigerator; or in thepackaging of sandwiches for lunches, picnics and the like. For the mostpart these needs have been met by means of sheets of waxed paper,aluminum foil or plastic. The use of a sheet material is ofteninconvenient, however, and if the user is not dexterous the goods willoften be imperfectly wrapped, leading to loss of flavor or evenspoilage.

To solve this problem there are available on the market paper bags ofvarious types. However, these are generally packaged in stacks or pilesand are often difficult to separate from one another. Moreover, forrefrigerator use paper, unless it is heavily treated, is not asresistant to the passage of vapor as might be desired. Finally the paperis inherently opaque or at best translucent so that it is difiicult orimpossible to inspect the contents of a ba To overcome these drawbacks,there have been placed on the market bags made of more or lesstransparent plastic. These bags are packed in a stack or, moreconveniently, in a roll with the direction of the bag openingperpendicular to the axis of the roll. In either case, however, the bagshave been difiicult to use. The very nature of the materials causes oneside of the bag to adhere to the other. T open the bag one must find theopen side (not an easy task in some cases), part the two walls of thebag and holding them apart, insert the article to be packaged. This istime consuming and, to many housewives, exasperating.

In accordance with the invention these and other difficulties areovercome by means of a bag comprising a single sheet of thermoplasticfilm, folded upon itself and sealed along the sides to form a pouchhaving a front side and a rear side, the front side being shorter thanthe rear side to create a lip, and the top edge of the front side beingturned down to form a shallow fold. The provision of the lip, inconjunction with the shallow fold, makes it easy to separate the frontside of the bag from the rear side. The lip also provides a closurewhich can be folded over the front side of the bag. If desired a contactadhesive can be applied to the lip so that it will stick to the frontside.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, identification means, suchas a strip of colored material, may be associated with the shallow foldto mark the bag open- Bags according to the invention are preferablymade in a strip and packaged in a roll. In another aspect, the inventiontherefore includes a roll of readily dispensible bags, said rollcomprising a continuous sheet of thermoplastic film, folded upon itself,sealed and weakened at selected points along its length to formdetachable bags opening in a direction parallel to the axis of the roll,one wall of each of said bags being shorter than the other'wall to leavea lip extending beyond the opening of the pouch.

In use, the roll of bags according to the invention will preferably beenclosed in a container, having an aperture through which the strip ofbags can be drawn. Means may be positioned adjacent the aperture forcooperation with the weakened portions of the strip, to enableindiivdual bags to be detached. The invention therefore furthercomprises a household appliance comprising a container, a rolled upstrip of detachable bags in said container, said strip comprising acontinuous sheet of a thermoplastic film folded upon itself, heat sealedand weakened at selected points along its length to form bags opening ina direction parallel to the axis of the roll, one wall of each of saidbags being shorter than the other wall to leave a lip extending beyondthe opening of the bag, an aperture in said box to permit said strip tobe drawn from said box and means adjacent said aperture, adapted tocooperate with the weakened portions of the strip to enbale individualbags to be detached from the strip.

In its process aspects the invention comprises a meth- 0d of making bagtype containers from a continuous length of thermoplastic materialhaving a top edge and a bottom edge which comprises folding the sheet tobring the bottom edge to a line parallel to but below the top edge, thusto form a large 0 fold and to leave a lip between the bottom edge andthe top edge, turning the bottom edge down to form a shallow fold,sealing the folded strip in selected areas along its length andweakening the strip at points within the sealed areas.

The invention will be further described with reference to theaccompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a front elevational view of a bag according tothe invention.

FIG. 2 is a view partly in vertical section of the bag of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing the bag of FIGS. 1 and 2 filled andclosed.

PEG. 4 is a perspective view of a roll of bags according to theinvention.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a household appliance according to theinvention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic plan view illustrating the manufacture of bagsaccording to the invention.

FIG. 7 is a fragmentary schematic view in side elevation illustratingthe process of FIG. 6.

Referring first to FIGS. 1-3, bags according to the invention may bemade from a single sheet 1 of thermoplastic material. This material mayconveniently be any of the various types of film available on themarket, for example, cellulose acetate, polyvinyl chloride, polyvinylacetate, polyvinylidene chloride, polyethylene or polypropylene. Thesheet 1 is folded upon itself and heat sealed along the side edges 6 and7, to form a pouch '2 having a front side 3 and a rear side 4. The frontside 3 is substantially shorter than the rear side 4, to provide a lip 5which extends beyond the pouchfi;

In accordance with the invention, the upper edge 10 of the front side 3-is preferably turned down a short distance, say to create a shallow fold11. The fold 11 may be made so that the edge 10 is inside or outside thepouch 3. The fold is retained by heat sealing as at 12 and 13.

It will be appreciated that synthetic resin films of the type disclosedabove build up static charges readily so that surfaces brought intocontact adhere to each other strongly. Thus, of the front and rear sides3 and 4 of the bag were of the same length, with these faces adheringclosely to one another,- it would be extremely difficult to open thebag, particularly with wet fingers. However, in the lip 5, and in theedge fold ll, the user is given something to catch hold of to pull thebag open. Moreover, the lip 5 serves as a cover for the bag, as shown inFIG. 3-. To facilitate this last function a light coating 8 of a sealantmay be applied along the inner surface 9 of the lip 5. A coating whichhas been found particularly satisfactory is a mixture of Atmos 300, ablend of monoand diglycerides of fatty acids and Tween 80, apol'yoxyethylene sobitan monooleate. The former may be used to theextent of 1.5 to 50 rug/m. of surface coated; the latter in a proportionof 0.6 to 18 mg./m.

Since the bag is normally transparent, there may be some difiiculty infinding just where the opening is. To

overcome this problem identification means may be associated with thefold 11. The identification means may take various forms. As shown inFIGS, 1-3 a strip of colored material 14 may be inserted in the fold 11and retained by heat sealing at 12 and 13. Alternatively the edge '10may be printed with a distinctive color.

Bags according to the invention are preferably 'made in a continuousstrip and packaged in a roll. This is illustrated in FIG. 4 where acontinuous strip 20 comprising bags 21, 22, and 23 is drawn from a roll24. Each of the bags 21, 22, and 23 is as shown in FIGS. 13 and it willbe observed that the bags open in a direction which is parallel to theaxis AA of the roll 24. Each of the bags is separated from adjacent bagsby weakened areas, e.g. perforations, such as 25 and 26.

Referring to FIG. 5 the roll of bags of FIG. 4 may 7 be used inconnection with a container such as a box 26 having an aperture 27through which the strip of bags 20 may be drawn. A stiff edge 28 may beassociated with the aperture 27 to facilitate detachment of the bags.

Manufactureof bags according to the invention is a simple and economicalprocedure. As shown in FIG. 6, a continuous length 30 of film orsheeting is drawn from a supply roll 31 and is folded upon itself bybeing passed over a large plow 32. The plow 32 is arranged so that itmeets the strip 20 closer to the edge 33 than to the edge 34. Thus, uponfolding, the edge 33 does not reach to the edge 34, and leaves a lip 35.

The front side 36 of the length 30 at a point adjacent the edge 33 thenmeets a small plow 37 which in conjunction with a pair of rollers 38forms a shallow fold 39 by turning in the edge 33. At the same time astrip 40 of colored material is run inside the fold 39.

The assembly is next passed through sealing device 42 which, operatingintermittently, seals the folded length of film together at spacedpoints along its length. A

perforator 43 then operates to provide perforations in the sealed area.Following this the finished strip may be wound up on a roller 44.

A consideration of the foregoing specification will show that theinvention provides a simple, convenient and easily manufactured bag forhome use. It permits the desirable properties of plastic films to beutilized to the fullest extent while avoiding the inconveniencesexperienced with other constructions. Bags according to the inventionmay be made from thermoplastic film. Generally extrusion cast films aremore transparent than extrusion blow tubing which has usuallybeenemployed to make the continuous strip packages of plastic bags'of theprior art.

It will be obvious that many variations will occur to those skilled inthe art and the invention is not limited to the specific constructionsdescribed above.

What is claimed is:

l. A bag comprising a thermoplastic sheet folded upon itself with thefront side of the bag shorter than the rear side, the top edge of thefront side folded forward and outside of said bag in a shallow fold,said fold being associated with identification means, the folded frontside, including the shallow fold, held to the rear side of saidthermoplastic sheet in heat-sealed relationship, said relatively longersheet providing a folding lip covering said shallow fold, part of saidlip being coated on the inner portion thereof with a non-tacky, thin,persistent surfacecoating agent comprised of monoand diglycerides offatty acids and a polyoxyethylene sorbitan monooleate, said agentimparting the ability of said lip to cling to said uncoated front side,including said shallow fold, said thin, persistent surface-coating agentthereafter giving a closure seal with said front side of the bag capableof repeated closing and reopening after each use of said bag.

2. The bag according to claim 1 wherein the thermoplastic material ispolyolefin, said shallow fold containing within it an identificationmeans in form of a thin strip additionally bulking-up the opening forsaid bag and facilitating opening of said coated lip.

3. A roll of readily dispensable, detachable bags, said roll comprisinga continuous thermoplastic sheet folded lengthwise upon itself with thefront side of the bag shorter than the rear side, the top edge of thefront side folded forward and outside of said bag in a shallow fold, thefolded front side, including the shallow fold, held to the rear side vofsaid thermoplastic sheet in heat-sealed relationship, each bag in thecontinuous thermoplastic sheet being heat-sealed across the lengthwisefolded sheet and weakened at selected points outside of the bagenclosure formed by said heat-sealed points, said weakened pointsdefining said detachable bags, said relatively longer tear sheetproviding a folding lip covering said shallow fold, part of said lipbeing coated on inner portion thereof with a thin, persistentsurface-coating agent comprised of monoand 'diglyceri'des of fatty acidsand a polyoxyethylen-e sorbitan monooleate, said agent imparting theability of said lip to cling to said uncoated front side, including saidshallow fold, after easy removal from said roll, said thin persistentsurface-coating agent thereafter giving a closure seal with said frontside of the bag being capable of repeated closing and reopening aftereach use of said bag.

4. A household appliance comprising a container, a rolled-up strip ofdetachable, thermoplastic bags in said container, said rolled-up stripcomprising a continuous thermoplastic sheet folded lengthwise uponitself with the front side of the bag shorter than the rear side, thetop edge of the front side folded forward and outsideof said bag in ashallow fold, the folded front side including the shallow fold held tothe rear side of said thermoplastic sheet in heat-sealed relationship,each bag in the continuous thermoplastic sheet being heat-sealed acrossthe lengthwise folded sheet and weakened at selected points outside ofthe bag enclosure formed by said heatsealed points, said relativelylonger sheet providing a foldi'ng lip, part of said lip being coated oninner portion thereof with a thin persistent surface-coating agentcomprised of monoand diglycerides of fatty acids and a polyoxyethylenesorbitan monooleate, an aperture in said container to permit said stripto be drawn from said container and means adjacent to said apertureadapted to cooperate with the weakened portions ofthe strip to enableindividual bags to be detached from the strip, said surfacecoating agentimparting the ability of said lip to cling to said uncoated back portionof said lip, andallowing easy removal of said rolled-up bags from saidroll, said thin persistent surface-coating agent thereafter giving arepeated closure with said uncoated front side of the bag.

References Cited 'in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Re.21,887 Klein -2 Aug. 26, 1941 1,145,093 Swift July 6, 1915 1,992,152Yeates Feb. 19, 1935 2,401,109 Rohdin May 28, 1946 2,502,749 Reid Apr.4, 1950 2,553,923 Lambert May 22, 1951 2,558,780 Piazze July 3, 19512,668,769 Schlienz Feb. 9, 1954 6 Haire Dec. 27, 1955 Piazze et a1 Dec.11, 1956 Randall Feb. 12, 1957 Lingenfelter et a1 Mar, 24, 1959 MeisterNov. 29, 1960 Singerman Jan. 23, 1962 Burnett Aug. 14, 1962 PatienceNov. 6. 1962 FOREIGN PATENTS Belgium Aug. 14, 1952 Germany Sept. 25,1934 Germany Sept. 17, 1953

4. A HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE COMPRISING A CONTAINER, A ROLLED-UP STRIP OFDETACHABLE, THERMOPLASTIC BAGS IN SAID CONTAINER, SAID ROLLEDACHABLE,THERMOPLASTIC BAGS IN SAID CONTAINER, SAID ROLLED-UP STRIP COMPRISING ACNTINUOUS THERMOPLASTIC SHEET FOLDED LENGTHWISE UPON ITSELF WITH THEFRONT SIDE OF THE BAG SHORTER THAN THE REAR SIDE, THE TOP EDGE OF THEFRON SIDE FOLDED FORWARD AND OUTSIDE OF SAID BAG IN A SHALLOW FOLD, THEFOLDED FRONT SIDE INCLUDING THE SHALLOW FOLD HELD TO THE REAR SIDE OFSAID THERMOPLASTIC SHEET IN HEAT-SEALED RELATIONSHIP, EACH BAG IN THECONTINUOUS THERMOPLASTIC SHEET BEING HEAT-SEALED ACROSS THE LENGTHWISEFOLDED SHEET AND WEAKENED AT SELECTED POINTS OUTSIDE THE BAG ENCLOSUREFORMED BY SAID HEATSEALED POINTS, SAID RELATIVELY LONGER SHEET PROVIDINGA FOLDING LIP, PART OF SAID LIP BEING COATED ON INNER PORTION THEREOFWITH A THIN PERSISTENT SURFACE-COATING AGENT COMPRISED OF MONO- ANDDIGLYCERIDES OF FATTY ACIDS AND A POLYOXYETHYLENE SORBITAN MONOOLEATE,AN APERTURE IN SAID CONTAINER TO PERMIT SAID STRIP TO BE DRAWN FROM SAIDCON-